Page 24 of Captured By the Cold Duke
“I’m not surprised. You nearly beat your brother. He was in a foul mood all the next day because, of course, we teased him mercilessly about it.”
“I remember that!” Cherie laughed out loud. “I can’t believe I had forgotten that was you. You always had my back, didn’t you?”
Thomas tried not to let this comment hurt him more than was necessary. “I always tried.” He looked at her, and he thought that perhaps she knew what he was trying to say:I was also trying to have your back when I said we were engaged.
“You wrote to me,” she said suddenly. “From India. After the first time we met, and you promised to play with me, but then your father called you away to India. You kept your word to me, even though I was only a girl of eight. You actually wrote me letters.”
“I did,” Thomas said, his throat tightening as emotion overwhelmed him. She remembers that!
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but just at that moment there was another crash of thunder—this one the loudest of them all.
Cherie let out a scream and then clapped her hand over her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she said, through her fingers. “I know it’s foolish to be afraid of thunder, but it makes me feel like the walls and ceiling are going to collapse around me.”
“You don’t need to be ashamed of fearing thunder,” Thomas said. “The ancient Greeks feared it so much they made it the purview of the most fearsome and powerful of all their gods!”
This tidbit was lost on Cherie, however, as another crash of thunder shook the room, and she clapped her hands over her ears and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her eyes were streaming with tears.
“It’s okay, Cherie,” he murmured, and instinctively, he reached out and took her hands from her ears and held them tightly in his own. From the look on her face, he knew they were both aware that he had used her name, without a title, for the first time since she’d asked him not to. But she didn’t correct him, and instead, she squeezed his hand.
“That summer when you first visited,” she said after a moment, “I was very disappointed when you had to leave suddenly. You were the first adult who ever took me seriously. None had ever written me a letter before.”
“I was disappointed, too,” he said, smiling sadly at the memory of the crushing sadness that had filled him when he’d realized he had to leave.
“Did you like me then?” she asked, and it took him a second to realize she didn’t mean romantically, but merely as a person.
“I liked you a lot,” he said. “If I’m honest, I was more excited to play with you than hunt with Aidan.”
Cherie laughed. “I promise never to tell him that. But why? Why would you prefer to play with a little girl than hunt with your friend?”
Thomas considered this. “Remember how you said I must have been a lonely child? Well, no one had ever noticed that about me before. It made me feel an instant and deep connection with you. And I think I felt that playing with you would help heal my own sadness at not having anyone to play with as a child. At having a father who had left me so alone.”
“Your father doesn’t sound very nice,” Cherie said, echoing what she’d said that distant afternoon so eerily that Thomas felt his heart hitch.
“No, he wasn’t.”
“I hope at least you were able to make amends with him, before the end?”
“No, I wasn’t.” The words felt heavy in his mouth, the bitterness acidic on his tongue.
“Really?” she murmured. “Was his death so swift that you weren’t able to say what you needed to say?”
“Well, yes, that was one of the reasons,” Thomas said, his throat very dry. “But the main reason was that he didn’t give me the opportunity. Cherie… I had a very difficult relationship with my father.” He had to stop for a moment, as the words hadshocked him by how much they’d made him choke up, but after a moment, he was able to continue.
“He contracted some virulent tropical fever,” he began. “That’s what he died of. It’s a swift illness, and there is no cure. He had contracted it by the time I arrived in England for the first time this Season, and that is why he called me back. He had unfinished business with me, you see. But he hid the real reason from me, saying instead that it was a business emergency. When I arrived back in India, he was already at death’s door.”
“That must have been dreadful,” Cherie whispered. “I can only imagine how distraught you must have been.”
“It was confusing,” he said, frowning as memories of those days swept over him. “I was sad, of course. He was my father, and despite the difficulty of our relationship, I know I still harbored love for him. But I was also angry. Angry that I didn’t have time to say all the things that I wanted to say, and that when I did try, he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“What did you want to say?” Cherie asked, leaning forward. Thunder clapped as she stared at him, but she was so wrapped up in his story that she barely seemed to notice.
Thomas felt a rush of hope.I’m distracting her! She’s so engrossed that she isn’t afraid anymore!
“I wanted to get him to apologize for how he’d treated me all my life. He was a cruel man, Cherie. I know that you had a kind,loving father who adored you, so I’m sure it’s hard to imagine, but all my life, I was sure my father hated me.”
“I’m sure he didn’t!” she gasped.
